I take off my hijab and brush out my long, silky black hair. Then I wriggle out of the light summer dress covering me from neck to toe; those both go in my purse.

I have emerged from my cocoon. Now I'm showing a short tight top and a miniskirt; the gap between them reveals bare skin on my waist and the tops of my hips. I have 2-inch heels. I rock.

I already put on makeup, partly to make me look older and partly to make me sexy. My face is even and normal, so I can be pretty without makeup, but with makeup I look like an exotic movie star.

I get so tired of being good Rasha, studious Rasha. Sometimes I need to fly free. To be beautiful and have fun.

I can't believe Esma didn't want to come with me. It's our first night vacationing together in Florida and she stayed in our motel room. She needs to learn to get out.

The Bar

I find a noisy, crowded bar filled with young men and women. I walk in. They're here to have fun, and I fit in perfectly. I walk up to the bartender like I belong here and confidently order a glass of sangria.

He startles, then studies me. Can he tell I'm only 19? But he just says, "You got it."

I sit down carefully at a stool at the bar, trying not to reveal too much bare thigh. It's strange to never show any leg and now be showing half of my thigh. Almost immediately a guy, probably another college student here on vacation, comes over and starts talking to me.

When I've finished my sangria, he asks me to dance. We go out onto the dance floor, and I let myself go crazy – I'm throwing around my arms and head and body, and I'm being free and happy.

Eventually I need a break to rest and cool down. I can do better-looking than him, and I like dancing with different guys, so I tell him thanks and wish him a great night. I order another sangria, and within seconds a cute guy sits next to me and we start talking. He's 23 and also on vacation.

Then an older guy, wearing a shabby suit coat and looking he doesn't belong here at all, starts walking towards me from across the dance floor, staring at me without smiling. I start to panic. When he reaches me, he pulls out his wallet, flips it open, and shows me his police badge.

This is horrible. My stomach is sick and I just want to run away as fast as I can, totally panicked, except he's blocking the way. He says, firmly, the words I don't want to hear. "Can I see your ID, miss?"

"I . . . I . . . I don't have it with me."

He turns to the guy I was talking to and says, "Find somewhere else to sit, kid. You don't want to be involved in this."

The cute guy nods and stands. "See you, Samantha. Uh, good luck."

The policeman says, "You'll have to come with me." He grabs me firmly around my wrist.

Just then another older man, dressed casually but nice, appears at my side. "Hello officer, I am Anthony Mendez, owner of this establishment. Can I be of help with anything?" He offers his hand to the police officer to shake. I think I see a hundred dollar bill in his hand.

The policeman shakes hands, takes one quick look at the bill now in his hand, and stuffs it in his pocket. He says to Mr. Mendez, in a gruff voice, "Always check their ID. If they don't have any ID, don't serve them."

"Yes, Officer. I tell that to my bartenders many times, but I will tell them again and guarantee they understand."

The policeman looks disgustedly at me but says, "She looks legal age, so I'll let things slide this time."

"Thank you, Officer."

I tell the policeman, in a faint voice "Thank you."

The policeman gives me another dirty look, then he leaves.

I cannot believe what just happened. My life flashed before my eyes. I was going to be put in jail, and they were going to call my parents and find out I was in a bar. Wearing a mini-skirt. No hajib. Drinking the forbidden alcohol. They would have killed me.

Then, just like that, I'm not in trouble. It's hard to comprehend. I turn to this fatherly man who just saved me. "Thank you so much, Mr. Mendez."

"Call me Tony. I'm glad to be helpful. Of course, next time please bring ID, so you do not again have this problem." Does he really think I'm legal age? "Sit down, my angel. You look upset. Of course you are, a policeman is always upsetting."

He has no idea how upset I was. I feel so grateful. I sit down on my bar stool. He hands me the rest of my sangria, and I down it in two gulps.

He says, "So, what is your name?"

"Samantha." It's the most American name I can think of. He sounds Russian.

"Samantha! It is such a pretty name. But not as pretty as you."

I blush and look down. "Thanks. You know, you really saved my life."

We talk a little and I tell him a little about myself. Going to college, coming here on a vacation. "I want to be CEO of a large corporation. Some day." I shrug. "Maybe that's not likely, but it's my goal, you know?"

"So you are good in your school classes."

"All A's," I say, and I flash him a smile and begin to get woozy. I start to fall off the barstool but he catches me by the arm. I say, jokingly, "How much alcohol do you put in your sangrias?" but some of my words come out mumbled; I try to get back on my bar stool but I slip and almost fall again.

"Hey," he says, "Come to my car and sit down. You do not not look very steady." He holds me up by my elbow, grabs my purse, and walks me out the door. I'm having trouble walking, and I seem to be getting worse. He opens a car door, guides me in, and buckles my seat belt. Then he walks around the car and gets in the driver's seat. I rest my eyes against the head rest and close my eyes.

I don't remember the rest of the night.

Morning

I wake up feeling dizzy and weak. I just lie in bed, hoping to feel better.

Finally I open my eyes. It's light out. Morning. I'm in an unfamiliar motel room. What happened to last night?

How did I get here? I get up, get some water to drink.

Maybe I wasn't roofied at the bar. But that doesn't seem likely. My stomach drops and I throw up into the toilet.

Maybe I just slept and nothing happened to me, but I'm not wearing my bra or panties under my clothes. So I was, at some point, naked.

Was I raped? I probe my vagina with my finger, and it comes out smelling icky. Semen, I assume. In sex-ed they taught me how to put a condom on a banana, not how to recognize the smell of semen after it's too late.

So I'm not a virgin any more. Black X's are now crossing out all of my dreams about my first time – a cute guy I've been dating for a while, in a fancy hotel room after an elegant dinner, him finding out I saved myself for him. Or maybe on my wedding night, or passionate sex with a gorgeous guy I just met.

Not waking up alone in a strange motel room, after a night I don't remember, smelling semen from my vagina. Feeling like a slut. Feeling used.

I look in my purse, but it doesn't have any clothing, not even my hijab and summer dress. Nothing else is missing.

On the top of the dresser is a CD and package labelled Plan B One-Step. I read the description on the package – someone who knows what happened last night thinks I need a morning-after pill. I take it with water.

My body feels worthless now.

I imagine being naked and unconscious and Mr. Mendez is doing whatever he wants to my body, including having intercourse with me. That's how I lose my viriginity. It's a really sickening thought.

But I don't even know if that happened – I try again to remember my night, but it's just a big blank. One of the significant events in my life doesn't exist.

And I can't do anything about it, not a single thing. I can't tell my parents, they would kill me. I would never find a good Muslim husband with that reputation, so I can't tell anyone. Would the police even believe me if I was stupid enough to tell them? Would it do me any good when Mr. Mendez, or whoever he is, is handing them hundreds to ignore me?

He just got away with raping me. He's an evil man.

I text Esma that I stayed out all night dancing. She won't believe me. She'll think I spent the night with a guy, which I would never do. She also won't question my lie, she knows I need to keep any sexual adventures quiet.

I force myself to start the CD they left. I'm afraid to look, but my rapist meant for me to watch it and I'm not bringing it home with me.

The video is a German Shepard penetrating a girl who looks like me. At this moment I want to kill myself so I don't have to watch this video; I look to see if I was left a gun or a bottle of pills, but I wasn't. I hate myself now; I can't dredge up any sympathy for the me in the video.

Two men are propping me up, but they aren't in the scene and no one would see them. My face isn't in the scene, because that would show me being unconsciousness. So it looka like I'm voluntarily having sex with a dog.

The German Shepard thrusts for a while, holding his legs around me. Then he stops, I assume ejaculating his sperm. When the dog pulls out, there's a closeup of his dog cock. Then a closeup of the dog's sperm leaking out of my vagina.

I suddenly realize  – the girl in the video has a tatoo. It's small, on the bottom of her back, centered at her waist. So it's hard to see, but that's not me; I don't know what happened to me last night, but it wasn't that. Small favors.

It's still a big frame up. If I tried to make trouble, they could threaten to show it and say it's me. The girl is my size, with my hair color. How can that girl look at herself in the mirror?

I take a shower, hoping to wash myself clean of everything, and I find a few pinpricks on my arm. So they gave me shots to keep me asleep. There are multiple scratches across my stomach, reason unknown.

And when I rub the washrag over my skin on my bottom back, it stings right where that girl's tatoo was. My life just keeps getting worse and worse; I hate my body more and more.

I check in the bathroom mirror when I'm done with my shower. I of course have a tatoo, the same as in the video. So I was the disgusting girl getting penetrated by a dog; his sperm was leaking out of my vagina. Those scratches across my stomach are from the dog clenching me.

Great, I'll have a small tramp stamp for the rest of my life. If it's a gang symbol, I'm marked as being property of a gang. I imagine my husband's reaction when he finds my tatoo on our wedding night.

Now I'm dreading my wedding night. I'll just avoid that. I cross out my dreams of getting married to a nice man and having a family. I glance at my face in the mirror, and I have to look away.

So I was raped by a dog. That's one of the things they did with my body for excitement? Could they really be that cruel and sick? Yes, they could. They were. They did that to a young and helpless girl.

I look down at my vagina. I now know for a fact I had sex with a German Shepard. Did the dog take my virginity? No, Mr. Mendez would have violated me first; the dog was just the topping on their prize.

There must have been more than one person to get that video. So I don't know how many men had sex with me. And they could have taken other pictures. Maybe those are being shared or sold right now on the internet. I'm at their mercy. And they don't care about me. They don't even know who I am.

Consequences

I feel so used. Is that all a woman is to them? A body to put their penis in? Is that all I am?

I wanted – as a woman – to be more. I don't know where they put their penis, either. My mouth? My ass? My ear? They could have used me however they wanted.

And I'll never know what happened. It's just a blank space in my mind. I just want to give up.

Prayer time. I prepare to kneel towards Mecca.

But I cannot, even though my religion demands that I should. I cannot bear to be with Allah now, I cannot bear to let him see me this way.

I stand, unmoving, in a lifeless hotel room, alone, far from home, despairing. I am now totally cut off from my parents, my friends, the life that I hoped for, and the God I love.

So this is how the world works. People taking what they want, taking advantage of other people, especially people who trust too much. Ruining other people's lives and not caring.

I get dressed and leave. I walk outside, my breasts bouncing because I don't have a bra. I look like a slut. But now I am a slut, so I don't experience any embarrassment. Should a man see me like this and decide he can rape me, he has nothing to take from me – one more rape will not matter; no one cares how many men have raped me. I don't even know.

I can learn to be like that. I can feel the evil in me, coming out. To punish myself and men, to be a woman who takes advantage of other people.

The Raping

I lift her limp hand. She has so much beauty. I run my finger down the skin on the inside of her wrist. So soft, so delicate. So vulnerable.

I sit down next to her on the couch, place my hands on her chest, and squish her breasts inside her bra. I myself am already having an erection. My hand goes under her skirt; above the cotton of her panties, my fingers fondle her labia and probe into her valley of delight.

I begin taking off her clothes, to see and feel more. I am a very lucky man to be given this beautiful body for my pleasure.

Some day I will probably be caught and punished by the law. Or a father will take revenge against me for what I have done to his young and beautiful daughter. But how can I stop? Truly, an angel has been given to me tonight. The world must love me.

When we are both naked, I lie down next to her and put my arm under her head with her head on my shoulder. I turn her body towards mine, so her breasts are against my chest and her arm is draped across my chest. It is very intimate.

The first of my partners knocks on the door and shouts to enter. It is the bartender, coming for his share. The policeman will be here soon. Petrov will come in a while and pay money for her panties. He usually does not partake, but he may for this girl.

Samuel, that gross pig, will bring his dog and pay much money. Ricardo, the sadist, will mark her as his with a tatoo. A shame, her skin is so perfect.

I do not unlock the door yet. I ask to be given 20 minutes alone with her. Then I will share.

I turn her onto her back, then I grease my cock and prop her legs to each side with her knees up. I slowly slide into her. She is so tight, so vulnerable.